Discriminating Data: Neighborhoods, Individuals, Proxies

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

This talk draws from Wendy Chun‘s current book project, Discriminating Data: Neighborhoods, Individuals, Proxies, whichinvestigates the centrality of race, gender, class and sexuality to machine learning and network analytics. Unpacking key technical concepts—from correlation to proxies, factor analysis to deep learning—it reveals how these principles can foster acrimony and segregation and, through their default assumptions and conditions, amplify the societal and “human” prejudices that they were developed to negate. To desegregate networks and buttress social justice, Discriminating Data argues for the further development of alternative algorithms, defaults and interdisciplinary coalitions.